21 Things We Loved (and 5 Things We Hated) About Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Put me on the DETEST list for the liplock. I can buy there was sexual tension there, but to make it explicit at that moment sorta takes all the juice out of it.

And I don’t buy the conversion from Kylo to Ben. Not at all. Contrived as all get out and kinda makes a mockery of all his previous decisions.

But Hux? Yeah, that worked….

The theory of Rey Palpatine was the one I’d always liked the best, but I agree that the reveal fell horribly flat. It was anticlimatic because (1) we waited too long for it and (2) there was no time to process it. I personally think it should have been done in the second film, it would have set up Rey’s struggle much better and given it more room to breathe. (My cousin giggle-snorted when Kylo told her she was Palpatine’s grandfather, which seemed like the perfect reaction, tbh.)

I also agree about the kiss! When they were staring at each other, I was like, don’t kiss, don’t kiss. Then I was like, ugh, no. Then he died and I was like, well, I guess that’s okay then lol.

I honestly wondered if I was missing some backstory to the whole dyad thing, like maybe it had been brought up in a book somewhere (I’ve never ready any Star Wars book, Legends or new canon or otherwise). I think it was a cool concept also something that should have been seeded earlier.

There was one “Huh, didn’t expect that.” moment but every other beat seemed obvious.

And done so obviously and executed so plainly. That’s the boring part.

I agree with this article so I wont belabor the kiss issue, BUT I think the movie should’ve ended with Rey taking Finn as her padawan. Hell, they both could’ve become Skywalkers!

I was so relieved when Ben died right after the kiss. The last thing the universe needs is a Palpatine/Skywalker spawn.

But I do love all these characters, and I loved that this movie allowed them a lot of interaction. I’d have been happy watching a whole movie just of Finn, Rey, and Poe sitting around and bantering.

Moving forward from the “hate-the-kiss”, I have to confess I loathed the “and I’m all the Jedi” comeback. It felt horribly like schoolyard-banter… almos like a “your momma” comeback. And it was horrendously obvious. They overdid the whole “let’s replay a phrase later” during the movie (the “never underestimate a droid”, the “the empire wins if they make you feel you’re alone”, etc.). You just can’t use and re-use a writing tool without limmits in a text… I feel there were SO MANY better answers for ol’ Sheev. Rey could have said “but the Force isn’t with you”, or “a thousand generations stand behind me”, or pretty much anything but “and I and all the Jedi”. It not just made me cringe out of how predictable and “cheap” it was, but also because it throws everything back into the clear-cut simplistic binary that both, the movies and Luke himself was beginning to overcome. I mean, even Palpatine recognized how interesting and powerfull the “dyad” is (however out-of-the-blue-deus-ex-machina it was… like many other things in the film).

In other topics… I also disliked the treatment of the ocnversation between Finn and Jannah. It felt flat, expository, lifeless… I think it, like so much (as pointed by others here) was rushed, disjointed and dissconnected. I had a hart time feeling that is how two people born out of PTS and the will to resist “programming” would go about the topic. It felt like a casual “I like pineapple on pizza” “oh my, I do too! What a coincidence”. I also didn’t feel the Hux statement. I get that he’s portrait as a petty man who hates Ren from the shadow… but his lines and delivery felt (again) like schoolyard craptalk. As said, he IS petty, but he is also proud. Saying he doesn’t care about the rebels winning is WAY too much. I would have bought something in the lines of “I don’t want an empire ruled by Kylo Ren”, or “it won’t be Ren who will crush you ultimately”. That kind of line would, IMHO, even enhanced his pettyness without feeling out of character (he doesn’t let his mask of pride fall, especially in front of people he considers inferior, like resistance fighters).

Finally… I don’t think Sheev fucks. Given that there was never even a passing mention of an “Emperor’s Son” (or a Senator’s, or Chancellor’s before that), and given his usual methods, it is WAAAAY more probable that this “son” is a product of IVF (maybe even forced; wouldn’t surprise me) than your regular ways. For one, the “good’ol way” would have created a situation with too many liabilities, and we know how Palps likes his plans twisted and under his complete controll.

Did anyone else think there was a distinct lack of consequences for our main characters?

Kylo makes Rey angry enough that she conjours Force Lightning. She uses the Dark Side and immediately kills Chewbacca. She’s devestated. There’s a lesson in that.

But not to worry, as ten minutes later, he’s fine and she can not learn anything.

C3PO sacrifices himself for the mission, the team and his friends.

But not to worry, as ten minutes later, after a few amnesia jokes, he’s got his memory back, he’s fine and no-one’s learned anything.

And also – how much did the galaxy at large hate Leia? When she put out a call for help at the end of The Last Jedi, literally no-one answered. When Lando zips around in the Falcon being all charming, suddenly he gets the biggest damn fleet you’ve ever seen…?

They should also have doubled down on the Rian Johnson stuff. Rey is a Palpatine? I nearly groaned out loud in the cinema with that awful moment. Seriously, whichever Disney lawyers fought for that as the safe option needs to stop being involved in films. This whole thing was too safe. Too “lets not upset anyone”. Star Wars by committee.

I’m still leaning towards “like” for the film. But it saddens me that it could have quite easily been great.

@24 supposedly the First Order was “jamming their transmissions” at the end of TLJ, preventing the resistance from receiving all the messages of support.  

This is one of the two things I unreservedly liked about TLJ, that JJA immediately reversed (the other that Rey was a nobody, of course).   It would have been really interesting to see how you rebuild a rebellion from one ship and a handful of people when the rest of the galaxy is tired of war, given up on democracy, or just prefers order to chaos, regardless of how that order is enforced.  But alas. 

@26 / Thomas:

It would have been really interesting to see how you rebuild a rebellion from one ship and a handful of people when the rest of the galaxy is tired of war, given up on democracy, or just prefers order to chaos, regardless of how that order is enforced.  But alas. 

Yeah, that’s a good point. At this point in the Saga, the Galaxy’s been in a state of near constant strife and warfare for 60 years. It would’ve been interesting to explore that sense of societal exhaustion within the films, but alas.

@14 And done so obviously and executed so plainly. That’s the boring part.

This.

Massive secret fleets of starships, explosively vulnerable superweapons, battle over a (very) strange planet, a last minute ad-hoc rescue, and a crazy plan are perfectly fine Star Wars material. But the battle over Exegol I watched in SW:TROS was dull and empty.

Oh, sure, it was pretty to look at, but it was hollow. It lacked more than a scrap of structure. And it didn’t need to. Both SW and RotJ showed that its possible to give the audience a space battle they have at least a little feel for. I felt like the Resistance ships’ mission was mostly flying around in circles getting blow up while waiting for the entire rescue fleet to be dropped on their heads in one massive swell foop. 

I was not impressed with Han’s memory ghost. In a universe where the dead are always coming around to have little chats adding another dead person who doesn’t follow the appropriate rules is just confusing.

You know who would have worked? Given Ben’s obsession and the completion of his own similar journey? Anakin Skywalker.

I also wasn’t a fan of the overall conflict with Palpatine. They could have turned Kylo Ren and set him against the rest of the First Order without an over-arching bad guy

@36 I think I didn’t made it clear (English is, after all, not my mother tongue) but I meant that I liked Chewbacca’s reaction. Actually I was way more touched by his reaction to Leia’s death than by the death scene itself. I think the death scene was rushed and disjointed… Just like the movie. It deserved more “gravitas”, which is what Cheque brought back with his scene. 

They missed a HUGE opportunity to have Anakin appear to Kylo… why the hell not?! Also, the film was a hot mess with very little in it that felt satisfying. I have spoken. 

As I stay up really late to write an essay…

I liked the use of Leia. It felt appropriate: Carrie Fisher belonged in this movie in a way that Peter Cushing didn’t belong in Rogue One. I did spend a lot of time thinking “That’s a body double”, and scenes had obviously been built around the lines they had available, but I think this was perhaps not dissimilar to how her role would have been originally. I’m glad they didn’t wimp out and fail to kill her as suggested, because we needed that moment.

And we needed Lando, and we needed him to survive. I’m afraid that was one of my first thoughts when Carrie Fisher passed: We needed someone from the originals standing at the end, and he was the only real candidate. Of course, we also get Chewie, 3PO and R2. (Anthony Daniels, what a trouper!) There’s a poignant moment when the rebels are all scrambling to the attack and Chewie’s on his own in the middle of it: All his friends are gone and he’s left surrounded by all these young people he doesn’t know that well. I hope he found some belonging.

Apologies to his fans, but Hayden Christensen didn’t belong in this movie, just as he doesn’t belong in fiddled versions of the original trilogy. That was Han Solo’s moment (it probably should have been Leia’s moment, but staffing issues) and I’m glad he got it. I’m also glad we didn’t get a “Rey turns to the dark side” moment, as the trailers seemed to suggest.

Hux as a mole. There’s a moment where he takes the weapon from one of the stormtrooper firing squad and I suddenly realised, just before they told us, that that was the case. Brilliant.

Rey is the Emperor’s granddaughter. When they said that, I felt like laughing. The only good thing is that Luke and Leia knew that all along, because that’s how I’ve been playing it. And yes, how the hell did he get a kid?

Many of us felt Kylo Ren couldn’t be redeemed, but his symbolic death and rebirth kind of worked. I’m glad that was one aspect of ROTJ that wasn’t mirrored too closely. They didn’t bring in the Emperor just so the evil monster could kill him and show he wasn’t that bad after all. Ren doesn’t save the galaxy, but he does save Rey. I’d probably have annoyed everyone by putting in more arc phrases during the final demise of Palpatine, like “He was not the last Skywalker” and “There are more of us than there are of you.” The kiss was the very definition of shipper pleasing. Thank goodness he died right after.

The right amount of Rose. I’ve never quite forgiven her for making sure everyone on Crait died for nothing by stopping Finn destroying the superlaser.

An armada of mini-Death Stars. What else would Palpatine be working on?

“It’s not a navy. It’s just…people.” Sums it up perfectly.

“Rey Skywalker.” I knew (hoped?) she was going to say it, but I smiled when she did anyway.

I went “Oh my god!” when Wedge appeared. And then let out a laugh of delight minutes later when the Ewoks showed up.

Oh, so that’s what Chewie was given at the end?

Did I get that scene completely wrong or did Maz Konata kill Rey’s parents?

The first half of the movie moves along at such a rapid clip that there is not much time to focus on how bad this movie really is.  It’s clear by the end though; I like this movie even less now that I’ve had time to digest it.  The best thing I can say is that at least we’re past Episodes VII-IX, and maybe now we can get something very different.

@37, It felt like Ghost Han’s apperance was a necessary evil because of Carrie Fisher’s death. If she hadn’t died, I expect we’d have seen her Force Ghost in place of hallucinatory Han (and it would’ve nicely paralleled Ghost Luke giving Rey a similar, needed kick in the ass). That definitely felt like a beat that would’ve belonged to Leia, but I do like how it ended with the reprise of Ben and Han’s final exchange.

But yeah, I also think using Anakin’s Force Ghost in this scene was a missed opportunity (especially in light of the reveal that Palpatine had been ‘Vader’ during Force Awakens). That would’ve helped a lot with uniting the three Trilogies for the finale.

It was 80/20 good/bad movie for me. Unfortunately the bad was horrible. Shiv (really-that’s his name?) has the power of Thor. This kiss I blame on lazuras pit effect. I liked all the Jedi  in her notion but I think it would have been more meaningful to lifestyle show them all as force ghosts (guess they blew the budget on copy and pasting star destroyers) and to push the idea that is connected to others with friendship and love. I mean the Sith are bullies with no friends.  I also don’t like the video game power up writing of adding powers to the force to make easy story telling (did you know the force could teleport objects through space-door dash is jealous) or pulling ships down or jumping across the Grand Canyon Neo like except for the goth look (oh wait Kylo). It cheapens any situation where they might be in danger (like why was Rey climbing-just float or jump through the wreckage) because the force will provide. Maybe the force is only as limited as your imagination or will (hi Green Lantern) but that is never discussed. The point is J.J. never sets hard limits for what characters can do and then required them to grow as characters to overcome those limits. Even Rey calling on the past Jedi doesn’t seem to come with any self knowledge or change-she just does it. Maybe thinking about her friends would’ve the switch.  Really the issues come down to the last 30 minutes of the movie. Sure I hate the connection to Palpatine but whatever-as with any choice, the execution matters more-its like picking a hard vault dismount. Go for it but you still have to stick the landing.  

Sorry, but Rose got the short end of the stick. She got the only real win of TLJ (and, sorry, folks, but it was clear in the movie that Finn COULDN’T take out the super laser), and that win explains why Lando could rally all folks at the end.

@@@@@ Stubby the Rocket / A nice turn for ol’ Armitage, and still fitting to his character—he doesn’t want the Resistance to win, he just wants Kylo to lose. It used to be him and Phasma and Kylo jockeying for power, but now it’s just him getting silenced and shoved around, so we can’t blame the guy for being over it.

Yeah, and I also love the dramatic irony of his death. Not only does he free the new Big Three in a way that comes full circle with Finn’s defection in Force Awakens, but Hux is also killed by an old school Imperial officer — i.e. the living embodiment of everything Hux has been trying to emulate his whole life — in the old school Imperial way.

Oddly sex oriented Tor review, but some good commentary.

Best C3PO of the sequel trilogy. Liked the little mechanic who worked on him. Not sure I’m going to remember much else.

Han Solo has no business being a force ghost. Why so many fake out deaths? The emperor dared Rey to kill him, she does, nothing happens. For a few seconds all Sith and Jedi were dead; now THAT would have been interesting.

As their sinking through the quick sand Finn tries to tell Rey something and we never hear it. Rey and Poe both bring it up and you expect him to finally say it at the end of the film but no! I was annoyed by that- and the skipping to light speed thing. 

Other than those things I would also describe it as okay. 75 out of 100. Also shout out to Wedge showing up! That was cool! 

Lastly it was clear that there was no overarching plan…. how is that even possible with a 4 billion dollar franchise investment? 

I think the element of desire between Rey and Kylo Ren was pretty well-established in TLJ.  But the book felt like it had also been pretty conclusively closed on that by the end of that movie.  Their desire for each other stemmed from their own internal conflicts about who they wanted to be, and by the end of TLJ they have resolved those conflicts.  They don’t need each other that way anymore.  And I thought that was a pretty interesting take both on who these characters were, and on the seductive nature of the Dark Side.

ROS straight up doesn’t care about figuring out what Rey and Ren mean to each other anymore, and expects to just blitz you into submission with Palpatine’s UNLIMITED POWER.

I both greatly enjoyed this movie and found it cringeworthy. I loved Threepio, the chemistry between all the leads, Han and Ben’s scene, and the emphasis on never giving up hope and active resistance in the face of evil.

But the climax inspired eye-rolling and laughter, followed by some WTF, rather than awe.

Palpatine’s plan involved some sort of ceremony to transfer his essence into Rey’s body, which involved her needing to give into her hate and strike him down. He opens the roof to show her the fate facing her friends, and she agrees to take his place. But hold on, that’s not her striking him down in hate or anger, that’s her making a sacrifice for the love of her friends, allies and family. And Ben is racing to join her because he has had a similar realisation. I can see Palpatine not understanding the difference, but it seems like J.J. also doesn’t?

The Emperor loses in RotJ because he believes that the will to power is a stronger motivating force than the empathy reawakened in Vader by seeing his son’s suffering. 

Instead of expanding that circle like TLJ hinted, we get “I am all the Sith!” vs “Oh yeah, I’m all the Jedi!”, which reminded me of nothing so much as Spaceballs’ “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine” climax.

And then we all cheered as the Rebels blew up a gigantic armada which our heroes had recently learned was crewed by abducted and abused children.

@82 / Kowalski:

I suspect they had a rough roadmap for this trilogy, that being to riff on the original trilogy and let the other details just kind of hang out there without much cohesion. Which is a shame. They had a talented cast and crew. The potential was there to take it in new directions, but they settled on a retread as the core of their story.

I mean, repetition with variation has been part and parcel of the Saga since the Prequel Trilogy. It does play into Joseph Campbell’s mythological cycles and I actually do like how each Anakin, Luke, and Rey’s generations experience similar scenarios with different reactions each.

But overall, yeah, I’m just as frustrated by the narrative decisions of the Sequel Trilogy and how the directions they could’ve gone if they hadn’t decided to play it safe and go back to the basic ‘Empire v. Rebels’ dynamic. I still think taking out the New Republic in VII was a mistake, or at least should’ve happened in VIII or even IX once it had been built up (in the same way the Old Republic was built up across I-III before its transformation into the Empire).

@83/GAZ I really liked in TLJ when they indicated anyone could have Force, and you didn’t need to come from a particular family tree…and then they wiped that out with Rey being Palpatines….granddaughter. I guess you need to be part of a specific, special, family to be special after all.

I’ve heard this sentiment from fans of TLJ, but I just don’t understand it. The prequel trilogy showed us a lot of different Jedi from different backgrounds, and no one forgets the younglings. And in the expanded university books we meet many characters who are force sensitive or go to Luke’s academy. So its not a new component of the Star Wars saga. 

@84 / Kowalski:

Sure, I would expect some repetition across a saga dealing with good vs. evil, but this sequel trilogy has really leaned into the love for the OT. Not just narratively but also in the visuals.

Right, which both amuses and annoys me to no end that Last Jedi spent so much time acknowledging the cycle and breaking with the past…and then Abrams and Chris Terrio completely ignored and discarded it.

@93 / Lisa Marie:

Whoops. Heh, yeah, I forgot to include Rey’s Theme. That’s another favorite of mine from the Sequel Trilogy, too.

Here we have Rey and her buddies encountering this monstrous snake thing, and they face certain death. ” Hey look it’s injured. I will just heal it and it will love me forever.

@105: The intent of that scene is that violence isn’t always the best answer to a problem. Poe’s original plan was to blast the creature. Rey came up with a more satisfying solution.

And it went hand in hand with Rose’s own philosophy from the previous film: that they won’t win this war by simply fighting, but rather by saving those they care for (it also connects nicely to Luke’s original decision to spare his father in Return of the Jedi).

Rey and Kylo don’t kiss. Rey and Ben Solo kiss. After Kylo/Ben saw a memory of his father Han and ditched his lightsabre, he was just Ben. [IMHO]

 Of all the things to come from RISE OF THE SKYWALKER being reminded of the ‘Tolkien White Guy’ joke may well be the most delightful surprise – well, that and sand-boarding Rey Skywalker (also Miss Daisy Ridley WITH FANGS!).

 Well I’m just glad somebody else kept seeing a mouthful of sharpness when Miss Ridley got her Game Face, then was able to visualise it for all the world to see and realise that Our Hero is about one full moon away from making a slamming Hammer Horror villain …

 On a more serious note RISE OF THE SKYWALKER undoubtedly felt hectic from start to finish and will not be called the Best STAR WARS movie by me, but it most definitely had its moments (nay, Moments).

 I do feel that it makes the Sequel Trilogy nearly incoherent when taken together though (one can see the through-line from THE FORCE AWAKENS to THE LAST JEDI and RISE OF THE SKYWALKER, but the latter two simply don’t fit together very well), which is rather a problem – it’s interesting to note that the Prequel Trilogy, for all its own weaknesses, is a far more cohesive whole. 

It seems to always be casual fans who readily eat up Star Wars films now. For good reason too. Adam Driver made it clear he didn’t think Kylo needed to be redeemed. He’s not Anakin. He’s his completely own unique personality and the decision by JJ to nullify all of the complexity Rian Johnson tried inserting is just a slap in the face. I don’t want him near the franchise again. What happened to Kylo trying to run his own Empire? Remember him saying in TLJ how he and Rey could do things differently? Different than the past? This all just feels cheap. You could see the plot armor around the corner! The Resistance fleet somehow holds up to planet destroying Star Destroyers? Especially after we literally watch over 2/3 of it get destroyed almost immediately? Did the writers also forget the First Order is supposedly entirely comprised of conscripts and kidnapped children? Why are we so content to just vilify them? Finn should have been used as a rallying point for the Stormtroopers in this movie. It was hinted at in a deleted scene with him and Phasma in TLJ! It also would have been more interesting to see a First Order civil war of sorts. For example, the Resistance was too weak on it’s own but if Ben has been redeemed and instead said “Hey why don’t we just merge our forces and take on Palpatine and his legions of Sith Troopers?” I think the final battle could have been more believable and satisfying. Same could be said about this trilogy! 6/10